Walmart's tech arm expands R&D facility in Bengaluru

WalmartLabs, the technology arm of the $482-billion US retailer Walmart, is ramping up its presence in Bengaluru as part of its effort to develop newer ways for customers to shop in its retail stores and its online store.

: WalmartLabs, the technology arm of the $482-billion US retailer Walmart, is ramping up its presence in Bengaluru as part of its effort to develop newer ways for customers to shop in its retail stores and its online store.

It has moved into a new campus in the city that can accommodate 1,500 people. Currently, it has 1,200 people in the Bengaluru development centre, its third after the ones in US and Brazil. “The focus of the Bengaluru centre is Walmart's new digital foundation, involving mobile, cloud and high-level analytics. We are hiring tech-stack engineering graduates, analytics and machine learning talent, and those who can work in areas like artificial intelligence. The work will be in areas like supply chain, platforms and back office functions,” said Walmart's chief information officer Karenann Terrell, who was in Bengaluru together with Jeremy King, chief technology officer in WalmartLabs, for the opening of the new facility.

The Bengaluru team has been instrumental in the development of a number of Walmart's technology solutions. It helped develop Walmart Pay, where customers pay with their smartphones in Walmart stores. “It's a one click seamless experience for customers,” said King.

The India team built what Walmart calls CIA competitive intelligence and analytics ground up. This solution tracks all competitive price offerings and helps deliver to customers an everyday low price. “It started as a solution to track prices of competitors, but eventually developed into a platform that could adjust our prices automatically. We now algorithmically price 60% of our products,” said King.

The Bengaluru facility also includes a global business process service team that uses advanced process engineering and analytics to maximize productivity in stores, merchandizing, replenishment and other supporting functions. The team was instrumental in building an assortment planning analytics solution that allows merchants to understand what assortment of products to keep in a particular store. It has helped build a solution for faster routing through the store. It lowers the time to pick products when someone places an order, and leads to lower cost of store operations.

“Merchandizing is the core of retail. It used to be an art. The India team has infused so much science into it,” Terrell said. She noted that a dozen of Walmart's senior officers in technology had accompanied her on this Bengaluru trip. “It just shows the sense of urgency we have, and how important this centre is for us,” she said.

Amazon, with its focus on online sales, has been challenging Walmart and the latter is trying to build an experience for customers that makes its offline and online worlds a seamless one.